SUMMER NOSTALGIA The Bishop Boys Release New Music Video STORY BY MICHAEL SEGUIN / PHOTOGRAPHY BY SIMON GIROUX LOUIS ARMSTRONG ONCE SAID that if you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know. The Bishop Boys concur. The Bishop Boys consists of Windsor’s Austin Di Pietro and Andrew Adoranti. The young musical duo is studiously redefining the singer-songwriter genre through their distinguished unison vocals, poetic lyricism and nuanced musicianship. Austin and Andrew’s musical journey began years ago. “My Dad always had a huge record collection,” Austin explains. “He had over 4,000 records. He got his hooks into me early, with classic rock and blues and whatnot. I started with guitar lessons. And then in grade school, when we had to pick an instrument, I picked the trumpet. I really got passionate about it in high school.” “I got involved with music in the first grade,” Andrew states. “My Mom signed me up for piano lessons. Ever since then music has been a part of my life.” The two met in high school, developing a lasting friendship through their shared love of music. “We met in high school,” Austin recalls.
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“We were in the jazz band together. We started writing tunes together. That’s kind of how the Bishop Boys came about.” “I had played piano completely by myself up until high school,” Andrew states. “Then I joined the jazz band and met Austin. It was an amazing experience, being able to play music with other people. And Austin and I immediately gelled with each other.”
Top: The Bishop Boys, Austin Di Pietro and Andrew Adoranti. Above: "Gin & Tonic" song cover. Photo by John Kosty.
The two further cemented their partnership by joining the Coffee House Combo (CHC), a local jazz band. Aside from Andrew and Austin, CHC consists of four other jazz musicians: Sebastian Bachmeier, Alex Adiera-Leite, Vanessa Harnish and Natalie Culmone. The ensemble has spent the last several years playing across Windsor, even running a weekly jam session at the Phog Lounge on Sunday nights. “We got addicted to the band pretty fast,” Austin states. “Our friends would come out to our weekly jams and say they loved it. It was really an amazing experience.” While playing for CHC, Austin and Andrew continued to write original music together. “We had been writing our own music since high school,” Austin states. “We started spending hours and hours and hours in my basement, hacking out songs. Not with any real goal in mind. One of us would have a lick on guitar or on bass and the other one would add something to it. We realized pretty quickly that we had something special between us. We were always finishing each other’s songs.”
